


Eirenism

by itsdatrollmon



Series: Hi-Def Reality AU [3]
Category: The Creatures (Youtube RPF)
Genre: Domestic, M/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-22
Updated: 2016-02-22
Packaged: 2018-05-22 15:49:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6085620
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/itsdatrollmon/pseuds/itsdatrollmon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which James doesn't say anything up front, but Aleks gets it eventually.</p><p>Aka short snippets of their lives as they go about it and slowly, eventually, fall in love.<br/>(Will probably be updated slowly, if at all.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eirenism

"I'm okay with you staying here, y'know," he says one day when the mics have been unplugged, Creed wailing sorrowfully in the background and emoticons flooding the stream's chatbox. It's 1AM in the morning and Aleks is tired, but it's also kind of his fault they were both still up, so he resigns himself to the beginning of a conversation.

"Yeah I know," he says back to James. They've been here for more than three months now, and they've both already spent a while dealing with each other's shit, so "okay" is kind of what James will have to be at this point. He yawns - _holy shit, even moving his face was as tiring as fuck_ -, stretches from his seat on the Chair-Of-Almost-Swamp-Ass, and considers just sleeping in the guestroom bed for the night. He's thankful they decided to stream from home.

James hasn't looked up from the chatbox just yet, switching to Linkin Park once the last of the chords faded to almost-silence. He lines up the next song. Clears his throat. "I mean it though, Aleks."

There is something in the way he says it, how his eyes remain firmly on the monitor and his shoulders draws together, that tears Aleks' sluggish attention from the bed. He looks carefully at James, attempting to gauge his mood.

The guy's a good actor, if Aleks has learned anything from the 'icy end' incident. The biggest mistake anyone can make is be the Pinky to this goofball Brain.

"You okay, James?"

"Yeah! I mean," he pauses. Aleks yawns again and scratches his chest. James continues, "Like, man, I'm serious. You can bring your chick in here and it'll be completely fine. Heck you can get married and you can still stay! Bring your family, I don't care, they can stay."

Ew. That's kind of weird. It's pretty sad to hear of a married man who still crashes at his friend's house (Whoredan's not quite the case. Yet.). Also, it's uncomfortable. Aleks tries to imagine himself making out with his girlfriend-slash-wife on the couch, with James' max-volume rage screaming from next door. He imagines little Immortal Jr running face first into a pie, hotdog in his hair and the innards of a smushed old strawberry running down his face.

That...is a shit ton of laundry and emotional trauma he did -not- want to deal with.

"No," he says firmly, "that's dumb."

"Why?" Petulant, this time. Aleks rolls his eyes and gets out of the Swamp Ass Deathtrap, raises his elbows well above his ears until he feels his spine pop. James starts messing with the audio, turning In the End to something resembling Mike Shinoda on sugar-rushed crack.

"Seriously, dude?" he says around a yawn. James is just being stupid on purpose now, he knows. It's 1:30AM and Aleks is too tired to deal with James' usual shit that he's out the door and under his covers before James' response makes it out of his mouth. Fuck him, anyway. Aleks isn't -that- hard up on cash. Or won't be, give or take a year.

\---

Breakfast this morning was either pancakes or hotpockets, and Aleks didn't really trust himself with the stove just yet (not that he couldn't cook a simple pancake - but seriously when did they last clean that thing?). By some magic he's managed to funnel enough energy into his weighted limbs to somehow end up popping a Pizza Pocket into the microwave. He should probably start the coffee maker too, so he does, and the musky scent helps clear his groggy vision a little more.

Ein's whining from her pen by the counter, the sort of thing that tells him she was going through a puppy dream, so he pulls a chair up next

to her and absently stokes her flank until she settles back down. Wait - why was her fur moist? Shit. He brings his hand to his nose cautiously, hoping against hope that - oh thank god. It's not pee. She was probably dicking around in her waterbowl again, and a quick examination confirms that the floor is a lot shinier with damp than usual. What an asshole.

Sometime during his dazed inner dialogue, James snails into the kitchen, groping the counters blindly for a mug. At the fifth grunt and third fridgedoor slam Aleks is satisfied enough with James' frustration to suggest, "in the dishwasher, you dumb."

He meets James' baleful stare with a shit-eating grin, morning breath and all. For a moment James' face crinkles if he's downed a liter of balsamic vinegar, but he pulls his feet to the dishwasher and is seated beside Aleks a few moments later. The coffee steam gathers as dew on James' nose, and, it takes Aleks a few more minutes until he realizes another mug by his elbow. His. Yes. A sip.

Perfect.

Ein wakes up and starts fidgeting about, so James goes to unlatch her pen. She dashes out to the front door and reappears moments later with the morning paper. (Do they even really read that thing? But it comes free with the neighborhood and keeps the toilet somewhat educational, so why not. )

Aleks unrolls it, slips out the comics and crossword section, and stands to put the rest in the recycling bin. By the time he's back, James is already scribbling in the crossword with a pen he pulls out from god-knows-where. Aleks takes a glance at his work, snorts in disbelief.

"'Goobledygook' isn't even a word."

James, to his credit, doesn't break concentration from writing more of his bullshit words. Aleks rolls his eyes, mutters, "that one's 'eirenism'." He doesn't bother trying to force James into not screwing up the crossword anymore, because in an infinite universe, tiny human being, blah blah blah...man he could go for some Mexican food right now.

"That's a dinky sounding word," James eyes him with a sort of teasing contempt. "How do you spell it?"

\---

"You got a heart problem, right?" Aleks, for the most part, ignores him and tears the chopsticks' paper wrapping open. The golden fried pork was being annoying and un-grabbable, but he can't exactly tilt the carton to reach it better because ew, there's grease seeping through the bottom.

Gross. No, definitely not touching that.

"Ew," James echoes his thoughts, wrinkling hs nose at Aleks (or his takeout, more like) from across the living room. On National Geographic, a blob-shaped human attempts to jump across a one-foot gap. James settles onto the opposite end of the couch, and considers his own lo mein. The obese kid on the late-night documentary sits down to take a blood pressure test. "We've gotta start eating better, man."

Yeah, James had a point. On a some days when Aleks opts not to eat altogether, he imagines a yellowish mass lining his organs, the inside of his blood vessels. Sometimes he forces himself to guzzle down fried chicken because he's so goddamn hungry but too damn lazy to cook, then tries to virtually drown himself in 15-pack bottles of water in one sitting in hopes that they'd help his body dissolve the poison residing in his arteries. He's too young to die from a jump scare stopping his heart, and too lazy to go out and exercise, so Aleks says, "I don't mind cooking, but someone's gotta clean the stove."

"You?" James says skeptically. The lo mein in his hands is only barely touched, eyes fixed on the fascinating scene of a blubbery little baby attempt to grab a cookie from a pile of confusingly colorful toys. That kid's focus deserves some credit. "You're gonna cook?"

"Am I seriously gonna let you make my food after all the shit you've done?" Aleks throws back, deadpan. He narrows his eyes at James' exaggerated pout. He's still not sure if he actually managed to clean up all the whipped cream from the inside of his CPU, but it's working just fine and ant-free so he doesn't bother himself with opening it up just yet. He's still not a 'forgive and forget' person though. All his shit's too expensive for a joke. "You got cleaning duty, I've got edibility duty."

"But why don't you clean it?" James whines, purosefully petty. Really? Well, if that's how he wants to play it.

"I already volunteered to cook," Aleks says, "Unless - " he pauses for dramatic effect, inhales loudly to really sell it, " - are you saying you don't know how to clean a simple stove?"

"Well yeah I - hold on," James strikes an exaggeratedly flabbergasted pose, pointing his chin so far back into his neck that his double chins wibbled as he spoke. Aleks doesn't bother resisting his grin, but he does try not to snort into his greasy rice.

"Aleksandr, are you challenging /me/?"

Aleks stabs a piece of pork, bites it off the chopstick. On screen, the blubbery boy's dietician starts talking about fibers. "Don't have to. You're gonna lose anyways."

He isn't fast enough to duck a pillow lobbed at his head, so some of his fried rice falls onto the carpet. He laughs despite James' grumbling, and tosses a few grains back at him.

A Spanish omelette sounds good for tomorrow.

\---

Aleks isn't a master chef. His knowledge is mostly centered around 10-minutes-to-prep meals, and on weekends like these he's never really awake early enough to want to whip up breakfast. (A couple of weeks into this and he's already conditioned James to the Eat-What-I-Make-Or-Starve rule, so now he makes what he damn well pleases whenever he damn well pleases.)

Brunch it is, then, so he picks through their small supply of vegetables, grabs a few eggs, and sets everything down next to a chopping board by the sink. Some salt and pepper would be good, too, so he grabs those from the cupboard and sets them next to the stove. He wonders if he should buy herbs next time. Cheese is a definite must, though.

He's started opening the canned mushrooms when he feels a furry presence along his ankles. He extends a harassed foot out to the side slightly, peering through the gap between the inner crook of his elbow and the counter. Oh, right. Psh, what did he expect, a raccoon? "Dammit, Ein, not now. Get back to James."

Ein stares up at him, big eyes literally made of 70% liquid cuteness, and...ugh. Aleks almost lets her stay. But he doesn't want to trip over

her and hurt anyone (James is going to kick his ass for that), so he runs his hands under the faucet quickly and picks her up by the armpits. Do dogs even have armpits? He's not too sure.

James' room is dark when the door opens to it, and Aleks almost starts trying to think of the worst way to wake him up. But the other man is already up at his computer, perfectly awake despite his bed hair and Spongebob pajama bottoms. (Aleks has matching Patrick pants thrown under his bed, and he makes a note for a trip to Salvation Army as soon as possible -

\- maybe. Once it stops being comfortable to wear.)

Ein tries to make a break for it, so he sets the squirming ball of canine loose into the slightly stuffy-smelling lair. "Yo James, can you keep Ein here? I'm making something and she needs to stay outta my way."

"Huh? Oh yeah sure," James takes his eyes off DayZ for a moment, and turns so that could accept Ein into his arms. "Need help downstairs?" he says after dropping a kiss onto Ein's snout. Nothing is sarcastic in it; it's too early for that. Aleks shrugs.

"Nah, I got it," he says. It's been a month since the Homemade Pizza Attempt, and he still couldn't quite get all the dough down from their sticky ceiling colony. Hopefully that's gonna be James' last culinary adventure for a while, because it's still a miracle that bugs hadn't chosen to live in that abomination of faux edible material (not yet, at least). "You know what to do."

"Yeah I know," James managed around a faceful of corgi. "You better not fuck up okay? I don't wanna have to clean up more of your shit than I need to."

Yeah, okay, if that's what James wants. "Don't count on it asshole."

"I mean it, Aleks - hey - hey!" He shuts the door in James' face, walks back to the kitchen.

Hmm. Salt, pepper. Accidents happen, right?

\---

James stretches, pushes in his back. Aleks winces, and rests his fork next to a piece of not-quite-burnt bacon.

"You're not hiding popcorn in your hoodie, are you?"

"Huh?" James blinks intelligently, morning eye grit shifting around in his tearducts. He grabs a hash brown off the center plate and, for some goddamn reason, swirls it around in his coffee a bit before mashing it in his mouth. Gross. "Whash dyou meen?"

Ugh. Aleks checks the wall clock. Jesus. "Wow, thanks for wasting my cooking by inventing disgusting shit. Wake the fuck up James."

"You wake the fuck up," James retorts. He chews a bit, pauses. Aleks rolls his eyes, counts down to three, two, one. On cue, James' eyebrows, lips, and chin run to meet at the centerpoint between his eyes. His abomination dribbles grossly between his teeth, emphasizing how much like a grossed-out gremlin he looks. "The fuck did you just give me, Aleksandr?!"

"I didn't give you that shit! You made it yourself, you dick."

James runs for the trashbin. Aleks grabs a piece of bacon. Slightly burnt, but pleasantly cruncy. "Spit in the biodegradables," he says to James' middle finger.

One chewed-up glob later, James straightens up from the bin, and hobbles back to the table. Aleks mostly frowns, anyway, so the face he makes when James groans himself onto his seat isn't that different. Jesus, all James needs to complete his impression of an old man is to start rubbing his back and - yup. There it was. James is officially now Old Man Jim.

"Dude, your back is fucked up."

"You don't think?" James bites back. He turns in his seat, twists around until - pop! Yeow. That sounded like it hurt.

"So uh," Aleks gestures with a fork, "what did the doc say about that?"

James twists to the other side a bit more, rolls his neck to really get a knot loose. "Pelvisjust gotta go back for PT and basically strengthen my core. It's the part that mostly supports my lumbar area, if you know what that is...?" Aleks nods, because he can just Google that later. James shrugs, "Yeah, so, I'm good. It's all good."

Aleks takes a moment to grab a hash brown, tops it with a piece of bacon. He considers James, who still looks like he's waiting for a response. He thinks of asking James more about his back, of asking him how fatal the whole thing is. It's the guy's /spine/ for god's sake. (If James isn't careful, if the thing in his back comes loose, what's gonna happen? Is he gonna be a paralytic? Is he gonna be comatose? Is he gonna -- how fast does Aleks have to -- what's he supposed to do?)

"If you say so, old man," Aleks says after a pause that he hopes wasn't too long. James looks indignant for a second, opens his mouth. A beat.

"You got more bacon?" James asks. Aleks stands, and starts the stove.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr as itsdatrollmon!


End file.
